Walk-in cold rooms, such as walk-in coolers, freezers, or other refrigerated environments, are common in various industries, including supermarkets and grocery stores, commercial kitchens, and other food service facilities. They typically have one or more access doors for entry and exit from the environment. Since these environments are often used to store valuable contents, such as expensive products and/or large quantities of products, it is typically desirable that the access door(s) can be locked to control and/or restrict access to such contents. For example, to control access, the availability of a keyed locking option may be desirable so that keys can be provided to personnel who are authorized to access the cold-room environment. As another example, to restrict access during certain times, the availability of an alternate or additional locking option may be desirable so that even authorized personnel cannot access the cold-room environment. There may also be other reasons to control and/or restrict access to walk-in cold rooms such as safety or maintenance.
A problem with these locks is that in order for the locks to be built to endure the loads placed upon them, the lock must be ruggedly built. This criteria typically results in a lock strike being made of all metal components. Metal components however are thermally conductive, resulting in the lock strike becoming cold. The coldness of the lock strike may create condensation, which may cause a safety hazard on the floor should it drip, or cause the lock strike to become inoperable should it freeze.
Accordingly, it is seen that a need exists for a lockable strike for walk-in cold rooms that is strong yet restricts thermal conductivity to the exterior components of the lockable strike. It is to the provision of such therefore that exemplary embodiments of the present invention are primarily directed.